Thoughts on life, relationships, and the zen of knitting.

Posts Tagged ‘expectations’

This past week has been one that has led me to really think about expectations and what they can do to a person. Especially in cyberland. When we find a person on line, each place that we find them is like a different social setting. The person you meet in my blog is one dimension of who I am, as is the person you meet on Facebook, or on GoodReads, or any number of places I am a contributor to. What you can’t know is who the person you would meet face to face most like? Is it the serious, deep thinker? The cut-up? Or maybe the non-reader. (That would be for all of you who know me through Good Reads – I actually eat books for breakfast, but you wouldn’t know it by what I post I have read.) Oh, and that brings me to the other thing – what is real? True? True for a moment?

I think we all tend to believe that whatever part of a person we connect best with is their real, true self. When other aspects we encounter don’t match up to what we expect, it can be upsetting, even make us angry. Expectations. I recently had an acquaintance I’ve known for a few years cut off contact, because she found my humor to be offensive and she couldn’t reconcile one cyber Kip with another cyber Kip.

During that same time, I met someone that had only met cyber Kip here on the blog and in one other venue. She had been slightly afraid that I would be a rather one-dimensional, incense burning, Birky wearing, chanting granola-eater. And I am, but that is not by the smallest stretch of the imagination all that I am. She was prepared to go with whomever she met. No expectations. We had a blast together.

I’m totally into goal setting – it’s how we get what we want. But I have been thoroughly reminded about how damaging expectations can be. And I need to remember the difference.

The offensive humor? Oh, I’m not sure. The topics that day were hair dye, polyamory, and merkins.